Minimum consumption. Maximum freedom.

The interconnectedness of being

Because we don’t have roots like a tree it’s easy to believe that we are single separated beings with boundaries. Discrete and autonomous. Separate from nature.

We are taught this idea by our parents, our grandparents, all our teachers, the media, books, and the internet.

This idea is all well and good except that we are not really all that very well bounded at all.

We exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the plants, and we exchange ideas with each other. We ingest food and we excrete waste. We absorb solar radiation and we produce sweat. The borders of our body aren’t really borders at all. They are more like bridges between us and the universe.

Yet, we come to believe that the something that is us stares out from a flesh sack that has arms, legs and a face. We (whatever ‘we’ is) stares out from behind our face. Unfortunately we are also taught that at some point the meat puppet that we live within will die and the something that we are will be completely annihilated.

I’ve previously written about the limitations of our sensory organs and how this leads us to silly conclusions. Our understanding of ourself is a good illustration of how we can be completely mislead by our perceptual apparatus.

In truth the meat puppet lives inside of the something that is you. The arms, the legs, the hands, that face in the mirror. It is all inside the you. You are not inside the flesh sack. This flesh sack is inside of you (your consciousness).

Interestingly it appears that the real IT that is you is linked to all of the other real IT’s that are they. We are like computer characters in a video game that are all linked by the very fact that we all live on the same mainframe. We need to consider what unites us and flow with life in this way instead of continually focusing on what separates and divides us from others.